Thousands sign petition against plastic surgery game aimed at children

Thousands of parents have signed a petition urging tech giants to remove plastic surgery games aimed at children from their app stores.

Charity Endangered Bodies has started eight petitions in eight different countries against apps aimed at children that involve cosmetic surgery.

One particular app, Plastic Surgery Stimulator, asks children to change virtual patients’ appearances by performing plastic surgery on them using tools like scalpels and syringes.

Since it was launched a week ago, the UK petition, created by Holli Rubin, has gathered over 6,000 signatures, with many of the parents supporting condemning the apps.

One supporter of the petition wrote: ‘There are important things in the world that a child can work on and create, in practice for being a creative, energetic and involved citizen. Snipping away at someone’s body on an app can only be damaging to small people (and grown-ups too).

‘Apple, Google and Amazon should be ashamed of selling these. Please remove them — you’ll be doing some good in the world!’, while another added ‘This is SICK and we shouldn’t encourage our children to want to be anything other then they are!!’.

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Ruby Phil, from Worcester in the UK, also wrote: ‘This is disgusting. Reinforcing the already overpowering influences social media has on the way we are supposed to look.

Image: AnyBody UK

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‘Children do not need to be brainwashed into thinking that someone needs a double eyelid surgery to be beautiful. Or that they need plastic surgery of any kind to be beautiful. Just so disappointing.’

Once the goal of 7,500 signatures is reached, the petition will be sent to bosses at Apple, Google and Amazon, urging them to implement policies that prevent apps like this being made available to children.

Would you let your children play with a cosmetic surgery app? Let us know in the comments!